Road finishers are construction vehicles for paving a pavement on a plane. Road finishers usually comprise a hopper located at the front in the direction of travel of the road finisher for receiving the paving material. The paving material is transported from the road finisher's hopper to the rear of the road finisher in the direction opposite to the direction of travel by means of transport such as scraper conveyors. There, the paving material is distributed transversely to the road finisher's direction of travel by means of a cross-distributing device, such as a spreading auger, and fed to a paving screed pulled by the road finisher behind the cross-distributing device. The paving screed is used for smoothing and compacting the applied paving material and may have, for example, tamping equipment, vibrating smoothing plates and/or pressure bars.
Road finishers are usually driven by a combustion engine, in particular a diesel engine. In addition to the drive power for the road finisher's driving function, the combustion engine also provides power for working units and other components of the road finisher. For example, the combustion engine can drive a generator that generates electricity to operate a large number of components of the road finisher. In particular, the power generated by the generator can be used to operate an electric screed heating system, which heats the screed to prevent the hot material from cooling and solidifying on the screed. The road finisher's hydraulic systems can also be supplied with energy directly from the combustion engine or via the generator. To cool the combustion engine during operation, a cooling system is provided in which an especially liquid cooling medium absorbs waste heat from the combustion engine. The cooling medium is cooled by a cooling air flow generated by a fan.
EP 2 281 947 A1 describes a method for fuel-efficient operation of a road finisher. If the road finisher is waiting for a truck to arrive with the paving material before paving begins or during a break in paving, the diesel engine of the road finisher remains switched off in order not to consume any fuel. This also means that the screed heating system of the road finisher is inactive. The road finisher uses a positioning and navigation system to determine the position of the approaching truck and the expected arrival time of the paving material. The road finisher's control system stores information on how long it takes to heat the screed to operating temperature. This enables the control system to switch on the diesel engine at a suitable time so that the required operating temperature is reached exactly when the truck arrives. In this way, unnecessarily long heating phases are avoided, while the paving operation can still be started immediately after the paving material has arrived. Although avoiding unnecessary heating times can reduce the road finisher's fuel consumption, there is still room for further improvements in the road finisher's energy efficiency.